Implementation is the key issue in wildlife conservation policy and politics. As far as legislation and formal policies are concerned, wildlife would be in much better shape if these policies were enforced but research (and my chapter on implementation in my Wildlife Politics book) shows that implementation is often weak even in advanced countries like the U.S. and nearly non-existent in much of the developing world. Gettleman’s recent New York Times article makes the same point about China’s recent decision to ban the legal trade of ivory: if it is enforced, it could have a major impact on protecting elephants but it depends on whether they take action against the “much larger illegal trade of ivory” and whether China’s neighbors such as Vietnam and Laos take similar action—if they don’t, the article says Chinese may simply buy from these countries. Unfortunately, these other countries do not have a good reputation for enforcing wildlife conservation policies. Read the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/world/africa/africa-ivory-china.html?emc=edit_tnt_20161231&nlid=10365419&tntemail0=y
The importance of implementing laws is well illustrated by a recent journal article concerning Indonesia’s failure to protect endangered species that are covered by the nation’s “protected species legislation.” The species included many molluscs such as the chambered nautilus. The researchers found “400 shells of legally protected species displayed openly for sale in large quantities” for sale in luxury resort areas. Moreover, they report that “…the Bali Natural Resource Management Agency, responsible for enforcing protected species legislation, has in the past made several seizures, but these are few and far between, and we were not able to find any reported seizures after September 2009.” They conclude that “The open, illegal sale and consistent presence of protected species in Bali’s major tourism areas points at a clear neglect of duties of the Indonesian wildlife conservation authorities and suggest a lack of pressure on the authorities to treat these illegal sales as a priority issue.” The full article by Vincent Nijman and Paige Lee is available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311466511_Trade_in_nautilus_and_other_large_marine_molluscs_as_ornaments_and_decorations_in_Bali_Indonesia
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During my research for the book, I noticed that there was no blog available for sharing informaton on wildlife conservation and thus I set up this blog to accomplish this purpose. Please share any informaticoncerning issues related to wildife policy and politics. I welcome feedback from users concerning this blog and website.
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